Israeli Soldiers Urged to Defy Immoral Orders

A left-wing kibbutz movement has called on Israeli soldiers to refuse to carry out illegal or immoral orders when serving in the occupied territories.

Elisha Shapira, a reserve lieutenant colonel and head of the Kibbutz Artzi movement, a group of 84 collective farms, said there has been an increase in incidents in which soldiers are ordered to beat Palestinians until their limbs break or to commit other excessive acts.

“The fact is that in the field many irregular incidents are going on and soldiers are carrying out dozens and dozens of illegal orders,” said Shapira, who performed his reserve duty near the West Bank town of Nablus earlier this year.

Shapira said he learned of the excesses from his reserve service and through reports from members of the Kibbutz Artzi movement, which has 40,000 members.

Traditionally, Israel’s collective farms have produced a disproportionate number of combat soldiers and pilots, including several chiefs of staff.

The call to disregard illegal orders, first made on Israel Television on Monday, follows Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s announcement that new orders are being issued to soldiers, loosening restrictions on when they can use live ammunition.

Soldiers will now be allowed to use live rounds, day or night, against any masked suspect who disregards orders to halt. In the past, only plastic bullets could be used, and masked activists were subject to arrest primarily at night.

Shapira said the call was not directly connected to Rabin’s directive.

In February, 1988, Rabin issued an order saying soldiers should use “force, power and blows,” as an alternative to gunfire, to quell Palestinian violence.

The order was widely interpreted to mean that soldiers could beat Palestinian suspects as punishment, and Arab hospitals reported treating hundreds of broken bones. Orders were later clarified to say that soldiers could use only sufficient force to arrest suspects.

More than 550 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more injured during the nearly 21-month intifada, or Palestinian uprising. Most have died as a result of gunshot wounds, although some deaths have been attributed to beatings. Thirty-five Israelis also have died in the violence.